And within every dewdrop a world of struggle.

There's precious little information on the histories of each of the members of the Kihetai, so I used that to my advantage and sort of screwed around for this one.

The title is taken from the 31 Days theme for October 20, 2009. The titles of each of the segments are also taken from various 31 Days themes.

And I breathe where you breathe.

He has heard the music since childhood, hears it in anything and everything, watches as it sifts layer upon layer of vibration and sensation over all that he dares to see, hear, smell and touch. They think that it's the constancy that drove him mad. They believe it's the reason why murdered all of those people.

What they are afraid to admit is that he never did lose his mind – back then, anyone could have confirmed that just by speaking to him through the triple-bolted, triple-reinforced door of his cell. They knew the truth. They knew he had fucked and tortured and killed because he had long since realized that the rhythm and rhyme of each human heart is different, and all the more beautiful in the swells of pleasure, the grip of fear, or the throes of death.

Kawakami Bansai is a composer, a connoisseur of sound; his victims, his instruments. Every conquest had been another step towards grasping another melody to manipulate and recreate as he pleased. Every kill was meant to bring him closer to enlightenment. Control the music, control the world.

What he discovers, though, the day that the door to his cell opens and he finds himself face-to-face with Takasugi Shinsuke, is that some songs are meant to be left unchecked and out of control. Some compositions control their master instead, and devour those who dare to listen.

That is never going to stop him, though, from playing the shadow, staying two steps behind his vicious leader and occasionally sharing his bed.

The hidden secret button inside your head.

The first time Takasugi Shinsuke ever looked at her – really LOOKED at her – was the day she cut her mother down from tree in the backyard and shot her father in cold blood. He had been passing through her village in Bansai's company, and had heard, of course, the townspeople whispering about her from behind their fans and their paper screens.

They met outside, when he came to her after she spent hours working under the rain, burying her mother on her own.

"They tell me you killed him with a single shot to the head. He never knew. You were too far away."

In the gray and blue of the rainfall, he had seemed a thing apart, swathed in gold, purple and crimson. His smile was knife sharp, and his eyes carried its own light.

"I may need someone like you."

She never regretted it, taking his hand.

Kijima Matako is still waiting for the day that he'll turn to her and say more than an order or a disapproving negation.

She has decided that she can wait forever.

Generations of poison, centuries of poison.

It had all been an accident, a terrible misunderstanding. He HAD loved her, loved her so much that it compromised all that he was, and she, in all her purity and grace, had loved him as well. Her parents, they just didn't understand what he was offering their daughter (a life free of conventions, with a partner who truly respected her for what she was). Nobody understood, and he did not expect them to.

It's all their fault, really. Because they didn't let them be together, he was forced to venture out and find another muse, upon whose nubile body he could write haiku in black and red. But the new ones he found, they were never the same. Mere children versus the vexing fairy he had once had in his grasp, between his two large hands. Dolls that gave him so little satisfaction that he was constantly pushed out to seek more of them, to fill the empty hole of her absence in his life.

Sometimes, Takechi Henpeita wonders if he made the right decision, choosing to aid this madman, this Takasugi Shinsuke, and his fanatical followers – they're out to bring the whole world down, after all, and destroying everything might make it difficult to find a new, girlish toy to bring to bed in the long run. And then he figures that maybe after all has been said and done, he'll be allowed to create a new world, one that's friendlier to the unique and beautiful love that can only happen between a grown man and a beautiful little girl.

Counterglow.

Nizou Okada had not believed in gods before. His father had beaten it out of him with the butt of his sword hilt; his mother had prayed constantly to empty names and abstract concepts, only to die before she ever received an answer. The rest of the world lied to him through its teeth, speaking of love and honor and duty even as it shut its doors to him at every corner.

He placed his faith, then, in his blade. A sword to cut at the veils and expose to the ugly truth of all things, he told himself, even if it meant burying himself even deeper in the grit and mire of life. His blindness, in that sense, was truly an advantage, for it made him accustomed to the depth of darkness and made him feel at home with shadows.

It is his first encounter with Takasugi Shinsuke where Nizou realizes that gods do exist – they walk hand-in-hand with demons, and have monsters with human masks at their beck and call. They carry darkness in the palm of their hand, and bear a light that will destroy whatever it touches.

He learns what it is like, to see for the first time in years and gaze upon a god's terrible face until his eyes burn away.

The opposite of faith.

He does not need any of them, has never needed anyone since he had to stand aside and watch the one thing he loved burn to the ground. He knows each one of them better than they know themselves, and therefore he knows how to manipulate them. How to keep them close enough to use, but too far away for them to pose any real threat. He does not fear them, per se – in fact, he does not fear much of anything anymore. He merely thinks that it would be inconvenient if any one of them is led to believe that he actually cares for them.

Takasugi buried his ability to care years ago, on the day he stumbled back to headquarters and found that Katsura had been arrested and Gintoki, like Sakamoto, had abandoned the cause. This world has nothing left to offer him – his new band, this strange party of four who has quietly resolved to raise hell in his name, is still tainted by it in spite of their resolve. He'll push them for as far as they can go, and let them cut themselves down should they ever be foolish enough to believe that they can stay.